Shades of Fortune

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  “I love listening to you talk,” he said, echoing her thoughts.

  “Do you really?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  And now another silence fell between them, and suddenly Mimi felt that something else was happening. At first, she wasn’t sure what it was. “I don’t quite know how to say this, Mimi,” he said at last, “but I like you—very much.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and was immediately not sure that this was the appropriate thing to say. “I like you, too,” she added.

  “Very much,” he said. And now the air between them was somehow emotionally charged, and a kind of current seemed to have quickened between them. Suddenly their conversation became full of pauses, and everything that each said seemed to carry a secret innuendo, or double meaning: On the one hand, it said. But on the other hand, it also said.

  “What is it this afternoon?” she said. “The Parthenon, I guess.”

  “Yes. Optional. That’s one thing I like about this tour. Everything is optional.…”

  “The Parthenon will still be there tomorrow, I suppose.…”

  “Yes.…”

  “The Parthenon is one of those things you can always trust to be there. Like you can trust the Leaning Tower of Pisa not to fall down.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a fine view of the Parthenon from my room,” he said. “Can you see the Parthenon from yours?”

  “I don’t … know. I didn’t … look.”

  “A fine view. Would you …?”

  “All right.…”

  His room on the fifth floor of the hotel did indeed face the Acropolis, and they stepped out onto the small balcony to look at it. “There it is,” he said softly. “It’s been there for twenty-four hundred years. And it only took nine years to build.”

  “Only nine?”

  “Only nine.”

  “Do you … know a lot of facts like that?”

  “Some,” he said. “A few.”

  “So do I. A few. I know … I know the atomic weight of nitrogen.”

  “Fourteen point zero-zero-seven.”

  “That’s right!”

  “Chemistry,” he said. “There can be a chemistry between two people, don’t you think? Positive and negative forces … that attract.”

  “Yes.”

  “Should there be sex before marriage, do you think? What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never—”

  “On the one hand—”

  “But then, on the other hand—”

  But this was no joke now, and neither of them laughed. She felt his arm circle her waist. “I like you—very much,” he said again.

  As he drew her to him, she whispered, “Brad, there are some things I don’t know very much about. Do you understand?”

  She felt him nod, because she had still not looked into his face, and when she did she saw that a thin line of perspiration beaded his upper lip, and somehow this sign of his insecurity reassured her. It would be all right. “Do you have a … you know, a thing?” she said.

  He nodded again. They parted the curtains with their hands and stepped back into the room, and he kissed her there.

  “You’ll have to tell me what to do,” she said.

  But that, of course, had not been necessary. Is it ever? A girl from Manhattan, a boy from Boston, a boy with a head for dates and arguments, and a girl with a head for figures, a girl who thought her heart was broken, a boy who thought he had lost his last illusion—positive and negative forces. There are only a few things that can happen to human beings under these circumstances when you are four thousand miles from home.

  In Istanbul, there was another letter waiting from her mother.

  Darling—

  Aug. 9, 1957

  Guess what? There is good news about your grandpa. He looks ever so much better, his color is better, and he seems much better in spirits. I think it was Granny coming down from Bar Harbor that did it, and for once maybe they’ll both thank me for having a good idea. Granny says that she thinks that when she goes away he works so hard that he forgets to eat! She’s going to spend the rest of the summer with him in New York, and see that he gets three good meals a day. I know you’ll be relieved to hear this.

  Of course we all wish that he’d ease off a bit at the office, and not insist on supervising and overseeing every tiny detail that goes on. Miray is launching a new polish/lipstick shade for autumn, with an amusing name, “Candied Apple,” and your daddy says that the office these days resembles the War Room at the Pentagon, what with all the charts, sales projections and quotas that keep changing daily. I’m sending you some samples of “C. A.” separately, and hope the package will make it to you through the Turkish Customs. It’s really a very pretty shade.…

  And guess what else? Your grandpa actually seems to be mellowing a bit in his old age. The other day, he suddenly asked, “What do you hear from Mireille? I miss her.” What do you think of that? He said he misses you! So I think it would be awfully nice, dear, if you wrote him another letter soon. I know you wrote to thank him for the trip, but I think he’d appreciate hearing from you again with all your news, the sights you’ve seen, the people you’ve met, etc., etc. Do me a favor, and do this.

  How is your wardrobe holding out? Are you getting good mileage out of your black ballerina …?

  “Mireille,” he said. “That’s a lovely name. I didn’t realize that was your real name—Mireille.”

  “Oh, yes. I was named after my grandfather’s Miray Corporation. I think my parents named me that hoping it would make him treat them better. At school, they used to tease me about being named after a nail-polish company, so I decided to be called Mimi.”

  “Will he like me, do you think?”

  “Well,” she says, settling into the banquette beside him, “where are these alleged diaries?”

  “Hell,” he says, “you didn’t expect me to bring them with me, did you, kiddo? There’re over forty-five volumes, covering almost fifty years of business and personal history. They fill a good-sized suitcase. Did you expect me to lug that over here and spread out all those books on a table at the Rainbow Room?”

  “I thought that was the purpose of this meeting, Michael.”

  “One of the purposes. Just one of them.”

  “Then I assume you’ll have them sent over to my office by messenger in the morning?”

  “Hold on,” he says, holding up one hand. “I’m not so sure. That’s one of the things we’re going to have to discuss. Let’s have a drink, and we’ll discuss that.”

  “But I promised Jim Greenway he could look at those diaries for his research—that is, if they really exist.”

  “Oh, they exist all right. But first tell Pablo here what you want to drink. I’ll have my usual, Pablo,” he says to the captain who is standing over them.

  “A dry martini,” Mimi says. And then, when the captain has disappeared, she says, “I don’t need to tell you, Michael, that these diaries, if they exist, and if they were written by my grandfather, do not belong to you. They belong to my family. Legally, they are part of my grandfather’s residuary estate, as it’s called. I don’t know how you managed to obtain them, but they are not your property.”

  He gives her a sideways look. “Did I say they were?” he says. “But what’s that they say about possession? Nine tenths of the law? Something like that.”

  “Then may I ask, if you don’t intend to turn them over to me, what you intend to do with them?”

  “Hold on,” he says. “Will you please just hold on? I said there are things we need to discuss. We can discuss these matters, one point at a time, if you’ll just simmer down and stop talking about who legally owns what. Thank you, Pablo,” he says as their drinks arrive. He lifts his glass. “Here’s looking at you, kiddo,” he says.

  “Thank you,” she says. “Now let’s have our discussion. Point by point, as you said.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Well, to begin with, there’s a lot in tho
se diaries that’s pretty boring stuff. Detailed descriptions of how they came up with the names of certain products, advertising strategies, promotional plans, sales figures—stuff that wouldn’t interest anybody but a student of corporate history.”

  “Which is exactly what Jim Greenway is writing. A history of the company.”

  “I’d say maybe seventy-five, maybe eighty percent of what’s in those books is stuff like that. But the point is that when your grandfather kept those diaries, he put in everything that happened. Everything.”

  “Jim is also interested in personal material,” she says.

  “Some of it is very personal. Intensely personal. As I said on the phone, there are things in there that changed my opinion about your grandfather completely.”

  “Such as?”

  “As I read through them, I realized—I couldn’t help but be struck by how deeply he cared about his family. Not just about his own reputation as a big shot, but his family’s, how concerned he was about all of you, about his children, their safety, their well-being, their happiness, how protective he was of everyone. How he worried about them, how he tried to protect them.”

  “Protect them from what?”

  “As I read some of these … more personal entries, I realized that this wasn’t a bad guy at all. He was a man whose children’s safety came first.”

  “But safety from what?”

  “From forces, from people, who could have caused them great harm, great unhappiness. I guess what I’m trying to tell you, Mimi, is that there are things in the diaries that I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want your friend Greenway to read about or know about. By the way, where’s your husband tonight?”

  “In Minneapolis on business. But go on about the diaries.”

  “Does he know we’re having dinner tonight?”

  “I don’t see why that matters. I’ll be talking to him in the morning. Please don’t change the subject, Michael.”

  “Well, as you can imagine, there’s a lot about your father in the diaries—things I don’t think you’d want Greenway to know.”

  She says nothing.

  “As well as living people—people you wouldn’t want to hurt. Your mother, for instance.”

  She hesitates. “Her drinking problem, I suppose.”

  “Well, yes. And your aunt Nonie.”

  “Nonie is—well, Nonie sometimes takes things from stores that she hasn’t paid for. It only happens when she’s upset about something, and it hasn’t happened for some time, but—”

  “And your uncle Edwee.”

  “Edwee’s penchant for little boys, you mean? Nothing new.”

  “Your grandfather had to deal with all those problems, and he dealt with them as best he could, to protect his children and his family. There was a blackmail attempt from Florida, for instance.”

  “Involving Edwee? I’ve heard whispers about something like that over the years. No big deal.”

  “But there were some other things,” he says quietly. “Even worse things. Things that had to be covered up. Things that your grandfather was forced to deal with. And did deal with.”

  “What, for instance?”

  “For instance, a criminal manslaughter case,” he says.

  “That was my father’s cousin Nate—Leo’s son. I know all about that. Please tell me something that I didn’t know already.”

  “No,” he says. “It wasn’t your father’s cousin Nate. Nate died in nineteen sixty-two. This is a case that goes back to nineteen forty-one, the year Nate left the company—and the year coincidentally when the diaries end. The criminal is still very much alive. You see, what I’m trying to tell you, Mimi, is that there are entries in those diaries that I don’t think you’d want to know about, and that I don’t want you to know about.” He covers her hand with his, and she allows it to rest there a moment before withdrawing hers. “And the reason I don’t is because I care about your family, too, believe it or not, and don’t want them hurt. And the only reason I care about your family, of course, is because I care about you and don’t want you to be hurt.”

  Suddenly she finds herself becoming annoyed with him. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Michael, cut out this cat-and-mouse game. Everyone knows it’s a game you play very well. You don’t need to show off for me.”

  “I think those diaries should be destroyed,” he says. “Too many people could be hurt by what’s there. Including you. I’d like to ask your permission to destroy them.”

  “I think,” she says, “that I should discuss this with my husband, who also happens to be my lawyer—after we’ve examined these diaries, which, in any event, are my property.”

  “Tell me something,” he says. “Did Brad ever know about you and me?”

  “What has that got to do with this discussion?”

  “Rather a lot, I’m afraid. I don’t mean about when we were supposed to be engaged. I mean later. I mean Riverside Drive. I mean the way you straightened my sock drawer. I mean the cranberry juice, and the Kellogg’s bran flakes. I mean the days of the little white stars, the days when I was trying to make some sense of that crazy mishmash that turned out to be your grandfather’s estate, the days of our brief reencounter with one another, the days I called our Strange Interlude days.”

  “Are you implying that’s in Grandpa’s diaries? How could it be? He was dead by then. You’re really trying my patience, Michael. Please stop this. I really think I want to go.” And, flipping her napkin on the table, she starts to rise, but, gently pressing her arm downward, he restrains her.

  “Do you love him, Mimi?” he asks. “Did you ever love him?”

  “Brad and I have been happily married for nearly thirty years.”

  “That’s not an answer, is it?”

  “It’s my answer. Now, please—”

  “And—happily? He has a girlfriend, you know.”

  “Nonsense.”

  With the tip of his left forefinger, he pulls down the lower lid of his left eye in a European gesture of disbelief. “I saw him with her at Le Cirque,” he says. “So did you.”

  “It’s nothing serious. It’s just a mid-life fling.”

  “And what was it that we had? A youthful fling? Was that all it was? Why do I remember how you liked your tea?”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Half a lump of sugar with your tea. You told me that at your grandfather’s house they always gave you one lump, because that’s what you’d been told to ask for when you first went there as a little girl. But you really preferred just half a lump, and a slice of lemon. Do you remember when I brought you tea in bed on Riverside Drive—with half a lump and a lemon slice? What you said then?”

  “What I said then has absolutely nothing to do with why I met you here tonight. And I’m not going to listen to any more of this drivel.”

  “And Paul Anka singing on the radio, ‘Put Your Head on My Shoulder’? That was your favorite song.”

  “Michael, you lured me here tonight with a promise to show me my grandfather’s—allegedly—all-revealing diaries. But you haven’t produced a single page. What’s going on?”

  “Oh, I could show you plenty of pages. Just not all of them.”

  “Oh. So now I think I get it. If I want to see these diaries—which may or may not even exist—I have to come up to your place to see them. Right? Is this the old come-up-and-see-my-etchings approach? Really, you disappoint me. I would have expected something a little more original from the great Michael Horowitz. Now I’ve really got to go.”

  “In the old days, you trusted me, Mimi. You needed me then. You said you loved me.”

  “I may have been vulnerable then. I’m not vulnerable now.”

  “Why do you take everything I say as a kind of threat? Even loving things. Do you remember, when you first came to my apartment, you wore my ring?”

  “I may have been foolish then. I’m not now. I’m as tough as you are. Now—”

  “Do you still have it—t
he ring?”

  “Irrelevant question! Now let me go.”

  Once more he makes the gesture with his lower eyelid. “Sure you do. Don’t lie to me, Mimi. You were always a lousy liar. I know you kept it so you’d always remember me.”

  “And you’re turning into an absolute pest. Now let go of my arm. Do you want me to make a scene? I can, you know.”

  Still holding her arm, he says quietly, “I just want you to hear me out. In the old days, you always believed in hearing the other guy out.”

  She relaxes slightly. “Then will you please tell me something?” she says. “Why have you suddenly come back at me after all these years? Why are you trying to break me down? It doesn’t make any sense—no sense at all. Everything we had was over long ago. Why have you suddenly come back at me, thirty years later, stirring things up again? What the hell do you want? Why?”

  “It’s pretty simple,” he says. “You were the first nice girl I’d ever met. Who was I? A caterer’s kid from Queens. But you were the first nice girl. You still are. I’ve had a lot of girls since then, I admit that. I know my reputation—the Romeo of Real Estate, and all that crap. But there’s never been another nice girl. And all these years I’ve waited—waited until I was rich enough—richer than the Myersons ever were—rich enough to come back and claim you, to come back again and have what we had again, the little white stars, because those were things I’d never had before and, believe me, I’ve never had since with anyone. That’s why I’m back: because I find you just as beautiful and desirable as ever, even more so. Your fah-nee, fah-nee face, remember? That’s why I’m back: to have those things again, before it’s too late for both of us.”

  “The operative verb is claim isn’t it? You’ve come back to stake a claim on me. Well, you can’t. Because I’m not some piece of real estate! I’m not one of your co-op apartment houses. I’m not one of your hotels. I think what you really want is to control me, to own me, but nobody owns anybody. You want to control me by saying you have incriminating evidence about my family in Grandpa’s diaries. That’s called blackmail, Michael. And I’m not going to be blackmailed, and I am not going to be controlled. I am not for sale!”